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She hesitated and I waited, breathing catching in my throat.

Maxine opened her eyes, bright and glossy and brimming with tears. “The blood bond didn’t work because I’d already found my mate. The spell didn’t take hold, because my heart, myeverything… it already belonged to someone else.”

I felt my pulse stutter, tears prickling hot in my eyes. “What are you saying?”

“It’s you, Leah,” she whispered, voice barely audible over the thundering rain. “You’re my mate—the one who has my heart. Iknow it sounds insane, but it’s the only explanation. My parents’ stupid ritual failed because… I was already bound to you.”

Something fragile inside my chest crumbled to dust, the final wall between us caving inward, and I could finally, finally see her. I stared at her, the rain turning both of us into bedraggled specters in the storm. But I could look at her forever.

“Maxine,” I choked out, fresh tears merging with the downpour.

For a moment I couldn’t speak, though a million things came to mind. I loosened my grip on her shoulders, dropping my hands to fist in her jacket, raindrops catching on my lashes. “That’s—God, that’s why he’s so set on getting you back?”

“Yes.” Maxine exhaled shakily. “He can’t understand why the spell didn’t tie me to him, and it’s driving him insane. He thinks I’m his, but I’m not. I never was.”

A bitter laugh escaped me. “You’re insane if you think I’ll just let you go to him. Not now. Not when I finally–” My voice wobbled, raw with the confession burning to be free.

Maxine’s eyes slid shut, mascara streaking down her cheeks. “I have to, Leah. If that’s the price for saving Addison, for saving everyone–”

“No!” I repeated, desperation turning my voice into a near-sob. My hands lifted to cup her face, forcing her to meet my gaze despite the rain lashing around us. “No. If he won’t relent until the day he drops dead, then we’ll just have to kill him.”

Maxine’s eyes widened. “That’s impossible. He’s ancient, he’s too strong.”

“So what?” I shot back, tears and rain indistinguishable on my cheeks. “We’ll do it together or we’ll die trying.” The vow scorched my tongue, fierce and unyielding. “I’m not letting you hand yourself over. I refuse to live in a world where you vanish from my life all over again.”

A strangled sound escaped her, half-sob, half-laugh. “Why would you go to these extremes for—me?!” She looked heartbroken by the question, like she couldn’t understand the depths of what I felt for her.

“Are you fucking dense?!” I didn’t mean to yell, but the wind was roaring around us and the blood was rushing in my ears and I had to tell her, I had to tell her, I had to tell her. “Because I love you, you idiot!God—how have you not realized that yet?”

For a single heartbeat, everything stopped. The pounding rain paused in the sky, the clouds ceased rushing by overhead, the tears on my cheeks slowed to a crawl. Maxine stared at me, trembling lips parting.

Then she gave a wobbly smile, a crackling laugh. A beautiful sight.

“I love you too.”

Nothing else mattered. Not a single, goddamn thing. I pulled her in, pressing my lips to hers in a desperate, hungry kiss, the cold rain in stark contrast to the blaze in my chest.

Maxine gripped my collar, yanking me closer, and we drowned in each other, oblivious to the torrent of rain whipping down from the sky, and the wind that snatched at our hair, our clothes. I clung to her, welding my body to hers, leaving no sliver of space between us.

Eventually we broke apart, panting, our foreheads steepled together. Every inch of me trembled with adrenaline and raw emotion.

“Okay… Okay. I can’t—I won’t leave you behind again,” Maxine breathed softly, brushing a lock of sopping hair from my forehead. “I swear it.”

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Good.” My voice came out rough, but I soldiered on. “Because if you do, I’ll just come after you. I’ll follow you anywhere. That’s a promise.”

Her sobbing slipped into a broken laugh, and she kissed me again, gentler this time. “That sounds more like a threat than a promise.”

“Semantics,” I muttered, kissing her back. I pressed my lips to her mouth, her cheek, her forehead. I kissed the tears from her lashes and tangled my fingers in her hair. “Now let’s go kill this bastard.”

25

Maxine

“Do you see him?” Leah’s shoulder pressed up against mine and she hunched forward to scan the scene.

“No,” I murmured. “But he’s down there somewhere.”

Leah and I were crouched behind a row of rusted barrels near the chain-link fence. Gray clouds skimmed low over the old airport hangar and tension churned in my stomach. Wind whispered across the cracked pavement, stirring loose debris that skittered against the corrugated walls.